Fabrication of Topologically Optimized Parts via Direct 3D Printing

Abstract

Within the scope of this study, machine codes are generated to fabricate topologically optimized parts directly, conveyed to the design and fabrication pipeline, utilizing 3 dimensional printers employing Fused Deposition Modeling type of additive manufacturing method. As the additive manufacturing industry advanced, topology optimization methods became applicable on the parts. Although Fused Deposition Modeling, which is used in this study, is not one of the popular methods for fabricating complicated parts, it will be utilized more frequently in the near future with the help of the advancements in support materials. In the proposed methods, the parts are first topologically optimized according to the defined conditions and then the machine codes are generated to have the interior of them constructed with shell like structures. These steps are done in an automated manner on Rhino3D (computer aided design software) and its algorithmic design tool Grasshopper3D. In order to prove the advantage of the proposed method, simply supported beams are manufactured via different approaches and tested under load. According to the results of the tests, the proposed approach has much better weight-strength performance.

Keywords

• Additive manufacturing
• Topology optimization FDM Direct slicing
• Topology optimization
• FDM
• Direct slicing